Through red eyes
by Book2romantic
Summary: There's two sides to every story. There's another vampire couple that drives the twilight series almost as much as Edward and Bella. Surely they have some story to tell, their romance as strong in its own way as the one that gets all the focus in the book
1. Chapter 1

This vision of perfection strode toward me.

"You're not afraid of me?" he asked.

"Should I be?"

He looked around the meadow.

"Yes," he said, as he tilted up my chin up so I was looking into his eyes.

I looked around, seeing the picnickers, lying twisted and still, some drained of their blood, some lying in pools of it. My father's red hair more orange than the blood that was seeping into the ground around his fat form. I'd always hated that man.

"I'm not." I stared back at him, straight into those bright red eyes, as unafraid as I'd been every time that drunk of a husband of mine had come home, alcohol making him certain that I was to blame for all his problems. His corpse was behind me. One way or another, he was never going to hit me again.

The man in front of me laughed.

"If you were going to kill me, you would have already."

"I like playing with my food, and these others were just too quick."

He was right. If a prolonged struggle, hours of terror was what he wanted, he hadn't gotten it from my family's little reunion. He'd killed my husband first, and my brother in law. I guess he preferred the terror of the women to the anger that the men would have had, however brief it would have been. My father was next, and my mother. He paused to drain my mother. I sat and watched as he sucked every drop of blood he could out of her. It couldn't have taken more than a minute.

My sister had taken her daughter then, using our mother as a distraction. She'd run along the path, trying to get back to the road that we'd taken to get here, carrying a screaming toddler. I bit into my apple, hearing a crisp crunch as this sparkling stranger had just disappeared, and then my sister screaming for her child. I heard his laughter, the most beautiful, musical thing I had ever heard, as my sister must have tried to fight him, trying desperately to save her child. Then the noise had cut off.

I hated all of them.

An intoxicating scent had wafted to my nostrils as I reached calmly for a cracker.

"Do you have many games like this?"

"As many as I want."

I could feel his breath on my neck. He had moved behind me. I shivered, the first sign that I might not have been as calm as I was acting.

"Could I play too?"

"Maybe you can." He sounded thoughtful.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"What's yours?" I shot back, starting to turn towards him, but he was suddenly already in front of me.

"I'm James," he said as he offered me a hand to help me up.

James. A fitting name. Kings had that sort of name, and by his appearance and bearing, he really couldn't be anything else.

"Victoria," I said as he tugged me to my feet. He smiled.

"Like the queen," he said as if he thought it a wonderful joke.

Yes. Exactly like the queen.


	2. Chapter 2

He'd made sure I knew exactly what I was getting into. First, it had just been more of a game to him, bringing me along. He'd show me all that he could do, how fast he was, how strong. He'd try to get some rise out of me, showing off all the superhuman abilities he had. I'd watch him snap a woman's neck, completely unconcerned. If he had thought that I was worried or scared, that I felt any sympathy, I hadn't given him any reason too. It was quick and clean for them. Not like, that, no, he didn't make it quick, but they never had any lingering, failing ordinary life. It was a few minutes of overwhelming brilliance, overpowering terror and beauty, or in a few seconds of incomprehension. Some of them begged me, as if they thought that I really could have stopped him, as they thought I really would have stopped him.

He'd gotten more affectionate as time went on. First I was just carried roughly, another fun part of the game, an appreciative, captive audience. But he softened. I remember the first time he waited for me. I'd gone to the bathroom when we were at a pub, searching for his pray for the night. He'd settled on a couple, utterly wrapped up in each other as they ate and drank. They'd walked out after I had left. That wasn't a huge surprise, it was always a risk I ran. He knew where to find me if we got separated. He always knew.

But this time, when I came out, our game was gone, and he was still there waiting.

"Why are you still here?" I'd asked, surprised, and a little angry that he would let them off so easily.

"They're not important," James had said to me.

"Every game is important," I'd snapped back. He'd smiled at this.

We found that couple, a few blocks away. With James running, it had been so easy to catch them. With him tracking, escape had been impossible. I killed this couple though. The first I time I was more than a bystander in the game. I was still human, but surprise is a great weapon, and I didn't need to fear any harm at their hands. Not with James there to protect me.

He'd told me of the thirst, how it burned, how when you were first turned you would do anything to stop the fire burning through your throat, burning right out of your neck into every inch of you so that you couldn't move except to that delicious tempting smell that would bring relief, that would quench your agony, even for a second. He'd even turned one for me, a child, so that he would be easy to control, easy to kill afterward. I watched him screaming there on the floor of the forest, watched as that diamond strength and sparkle spread over his skin, making it go cold. It moved through, like an expanding tide, moving out form his core, along arteries and out into his hands and feet. I saw those bright red eyes, where before had been blue. I'd seen them open and him lunge at me. I don't even know if he had realized that James had a hold of him, as he struggled there, his voice higher and sweeter as he shrieked and tried to get at me. I wonder if he even realized the danger as James popped his head off, then tore the other limbs from the body faster than I could even see. He had them all in a pile by the time I could even turn toward the direction the head had gone flying in. The smoke was purplish, and it didn't make me cough. It actually made me think of a open air market, or a fair, smelling the frying foods and the sugar from cotton candy makers.

"Are you sure about this?" he'd asked, holding me, after I'd seen everything, every beautiful terrifying facet of his existence. It was the first time I'd seen him nervous, the first time I'd seen him anything but strong and sure.

"Of course," I'd responded without hesitation. I wanted this. The power and beauty. The immortality, eternity with my king, my glorious fairy tale. To gain this glorious free existence forever.

He kissed me. The first kiss we had ever shared. His lips were cold, and completely unyielding against mine. But he had done it so tenderly I almost hadn't recognized it, even after spending hours studying those lips. I'd smelled him before, but this was so much more intense. Strong, sweet, yet so masculine. Power, made scent, and it had seemed to fill every inch of existence. I heard him growl, more felt it as a purr in his chest, as his tongue had forced it self between my lips. He tasted just like he smelled. Like strength. Like the freedom of absolute power. Freedom from time and fear and abysmal normal life and death.

He'd trailed down my chin, down my neck. The sensation was so overwhelming as his cold lips dragged over my skin I was near to the point of passing out. Complete sensory overload as those hard lips pressed against me, as those strong arms held me. I felt him stop right over my racing pulse in my neck, felt his lips pressing gently against it, his tongue dancing on it slightly. Then it was gone.

I opened my eyes to find him looking at me. "Why?" I asked breathlessly. "Why did you stop?"

"You're sure about this? About everything?" he asked me again, worried for me, worried that somehow after everything he had shown me, everything he had taught me, I somehow might not want this. Might not want him.

"I want this. I want you," I'd whispered back. "Forever."

**Author's note: Show of hands, who's shocked that this story is having any activity on it? Mine's up. I love this story idea, but not as much, for example, as I liked writing Sunshine when I was writing that, or as much as I like writing the Eye of the Storm, which is my main project right now. But the Eye of the Storm has periods of inactivity, as I wait for responses from all my coauthors (who are awesome, and link's to whose profiles you will soon find on my profile). That has given me time to write more on my other, long neglected stories.**

**I now also ask questions for answering in reviews. You get a rather frivolous question on this one: Who are your favorite authors on fanfiction? How about in the real world?  
**


	3. Chapter 3

He'd stared into my eyes for a moment when I said that. Then he had kissed me. Strongly, passionately. I was left gasping, when he pulled back suddenly. I hadn't even realized that his lips weren't there when he moved down to my neck and bit into it.

It was so much worse than you could guess from watching people scream. People scream for a lot of different reasons. Fear. They scream because they are worried that they will feel some pain. That the future will be worse. Hope. Some screams are pleas, trying to get some change to be made in their wretched state. Attempts to get help or pity. They scream to God or their loved ones. Desperate hope, but hope none the less.

These screams weren't like that. The screams you have while that poison moves through you are different. You forget that you are anything. You can't remember that you are a person with hopes and dreams and fears, or that there is a past or present, while vampire venom burns through you. Nothing will help. Nothing will stop this pain. You forget that death or anything else is even possible while every nerve, every inch of skin and muscle and bone is ripped and torn and scorched off of you and remade into something else. I screamed. There was nothing but that pain for three days. I don't know it was three days, obviously. It felt like eternity. Like every moment I had ever lived was like that. Nothing before and certainly there would be nothing after.

But it did lessen. Eventually, the fire died down a little bit, enough that I could feel other things, that I could think about myself again. Think that there was a me, and a world around me. There was something making it hard for me to move. Some cold stone prison that kept me from writhing around the floor of where ever I was in my agony. Slowly, I was able to start to feel the smooth texture of it. Like polished stone. Except it was different this time. I felt like I could feel individual piece, ever rise and dip that would have been completely imperceptible to my old self. The stone rose and fell slightly at different points. To the human me it would have felt like nothing but a flat surface. But I could feel everything now. I realized that I could feel every puff of air against me. I could feel tiny bits of dirt and dust and pollen that must have been drifting through the air constantly, but that seemed like nothing to me when I was human. Now I felt them drifting into every unclothed part of me. Crashing into my face and my arms and hands.

Smell returned next. The feeling of the impacts against my nose brought with it scents like nothing I had ever experienced. There was textures to smells. When I was human, the smell was only smell, but now they were so strong. And some prickled and poked. Some were fluffy when I breathed in, almost like what cotton balls feel like. One smell was stronger than all the others. A musky, powerful smell. Cinnamon, and mint twisted through the smell. But there was so much more. Every good smell I could think of. Chocolate, citrus, morning dew, pine. Every wonderful scent woven into one smell, one complete and wonderful aroma that soothed me more, that helped drive a little more of the fire from me on what must have been my third day.

Hearing came back to me after that. For three days, for eternity, all I had heard was agony. It would be wrong to say I heard myself screaming, because that would make it seem like I had gotten anything from my ears that I had made myself. The nerves that heard were in as much agony as the rest. It sounded like a loud, high pitched buzzing I think. Sound that was nothing but pain made auditory. Then it was gone, and I heard my own voice crying. Screaming and sobbing. I heard everything else to. Every twitch of me against my prison was like slamming a text book onto a desk. The wind rushed by, blasting in my ears like a hurricane, and I realized it was just my own gasping breath. And I could hear everything else that must have been going on outside my prison. Birds chirped. Squirrels moved among trees. Deer ran farther away, and I heard water moving through a creek that sounded like it was right by me, if it had been that volume to my ears before my change.

My eyes blinked open as the pain rescinded farther, pulling back to a dull ache in most areas, with just the burning remaining in my throat. I found stars above me, which didn't make any sense, because it was so bright. I could see as if it was day time even though the moon was the brightest thing around. I wondered, in that first moment, if perhaps I would be able to see the stars all the time, even when the sun was out.

I could see so much finer too. Dirt took on a new beauty, becoming like thousands of polished crystals. Millions of different hues made up the world around me. The green of grass and trees wasn't uniform. They were all like some green dyed zebras, stripes of different shades running through everything.

My prison loosened slightly, as I glanced around. I felt enough slack to move, and I turned. The world whipped around me as I did, and I found myself face to face with James. He had held me the whole time, never letting me be alone while that pain was happening. He knew that it did absolutely nothing, that I couldn't tell one way or the other, that I might not even remember him when my eyes opened next, or might loath him for what he had done to me. He stayed though, holding me, never letting me be alone the whole time. I pressed my lips to his, breathing in that wonderful, overpowering, smell that was him.

Taste was last. And it was by far the best.

**Author's note: Anyone who reads this reading any of my other stuff? Like the Eye of the Storm? Because I'm starting to twitch from my inability to put up more chapters on that. I need you all to hound the other authors I'm working with to the ends of the earth for not getting chapters written quicker. Eevy Angel writes quickly enough, and Shaps, and I suppose that CarribbeanLady has to wait for other people, but the other two have only the real world as an excuse. Descend upon them like some swarm of reverse locust, creating rather than consuming, sending them reviews and PM's pleading with them, demand, cajoling, promising wonderful things or terrible vengence. Just get them to get back to me. I need to know what happens next! I mean, come on! I'm a freaking writer and I don't get to know what happens? Go look at CarribbeanLady's version of it. That's as far as I have written. Jasper just pulled a knife on Emmett and Bella for christ sakes! How can they leave me like this? How?**

**It's 6:30 on Saturday morning, and I haven't gone to bed yet. As you can tell, I'm a little weirder at this hour than most others. That's why I usually sleep through it. So that I don't say such weird things. But you know what? This is going up anyhow. Let me know if there are any weird mistakes, or things that I just am not really allowed to say. Go look at my profile to find the authors I want you to hunt down. It's at the bottom, right above where the stories will be.  
**


	4. Chapter 4

Taste was fantastic. Taste was beyond anything. It was a better experience than everything sense of mere humanity put together. _He _tasted so good. Feeling his tongue moving against my lips and inside my mouth was amazing. The way muscles and skin stretched and pulled against each other was divine now that I could truly feel them, but it paled in comparison to the way he tasted. That wonderful smooth scent had just been a precursor to this taste. He tasted like a thousand different things. The citrus was stronger, while the cinnamon had faded slightly. It was strong, sweet, yet somehow perfectly masculine. It was so overwhelming it _made _my other senses better. Every touch was warmer. Every scent sweeter. Every sound like music. Every color shimmered brighter. I didn't want it to end. We kissed for what seemed like hours, as the pain faded almost entirely from my body. The only thing left was the flaying in my throat, and for now he was enough to distract me. My James. My king.

I kissed him greedily, not wanting to let go. Never wanting to lose contact with every inch of him for even an instant. After doing this for minutes, I realized that I hadn't needed to breath the entire time. I was gasping, sure, gasping the air straight out of his lungs and offering my own right back, but we didn't need to come up for oxygen like some pitiful humans would have. The only problem was the burning in my throat. My body felt strong and perfect, but the burning got worse and worse with each passing moment. I kissed James harder, trying to get it to fade or pass. I tried to ignore it, but finally I couldn't take it. It felt like it had burned through the back of my throat and that it would start spreading down my spine any second. I ripped myself away from him. I'm sure that my eyes were panicked as I searched around frantically for something to make it stop! James was calm though. His eyes were sympathetic, but they were almost laughing too, from the glimpses that I saw as I twisted and turned, trying to find some way to save myself.

"Shhhh...." he said, soothing me and placing a finger to my lips as I realized that I had been whimpering in my terror. He stood us both up, and I found that my legs were strong. I felt like I could have stood rigid, straight at attention in the military for hours, or run a marathon.

James held my hand while I stood, in awe of my own strength. Then he took off, leading me at that impossible speed that he always had run at. I was able to keep up now though. The forest rushed by us. I could unfocus and just watch it fly by, a shimmer of brown and gray and green, or I could focus and see every detail in the instant that I was able to view it as we flashed past. I flew as fast as I could, trying to outrun the burning on the back of my neck.

We finally broke out of the forest into huge field. Tobacco plants stretched out towards a solitary farm house, and I could hear the sound of the family with in. The wind turned, and their scent drifted to me. I immediately recanted everything I had said about the perfectness of Jame's smell. His scent was nothing to this aroma. I left James in the dust as I ran, faster, faster than I knew I could, running into that home. The delicious smells of those humans permeated every part of the house, every part of the world, every part of me. They smelled like perfectly prepared meals, like lime and a hint of garlic and sizzling steak, and above all like relief! Their smell made the fire in my throat leap higher, but I could sense that if I could just get to them I would be safe, that it wouldn't consume me again.

The door too the house was large and white. I'm sure that it's oaken form had weathered man a storm, keeping out animals and cold and protecting the family that was it's charge, but it exploded into a shower of splinters as I ran through it. I didn't even slow down. Chunks of wood brushed against my skin, and I crashed into an off white wall as I skidded some what on a mat placed just inside the door. My arms punched holes into the wall where I had tried to catch myself, and I pulled them out, coated in dust and plaster. I heard a voice start to shout from the other side of the wall and I struck. Before the woman could even finish inhaling to scream about the hands that had just punched through the wall of her kitchen, I danced around the wall and was on her.

I'm sure it was a mark of my inexperience with life as a vampire that I didn't bite into her neck, as I had seen James do so cleanly so many times before. I lunged for where I could hear her pulse pounding, where I could smell and feel the largest concentration of blood. I bit into her chest, turning myself sideways as I flew into her. My teeth sliced straight through her skin, and crushed her bones and the muscle of her heart. I sucked greedily, and her blood slid down my throat, along with tiny chunks of gore. I choked a little on there, but I didn't let it slow me down from drinking that wonderful nectar. The most beautiful wonderful experience ever. Every person should experience the ecstasy that is a vampire's first taste of human blood. It is better than immortality. Better than any sight, any knowledge. Better than mind blowing sex with the love of your life, of your existence. It made me complete and stopped the pain in my throat. For the first instant since I woke up, I wasn't in agony. I was whole. I straightened up, spinning around and jumping back from the way I had came before James even came around the corner even though he moved so quietly I had no warning.

"That's quite a mess you've made," he offered, gesturing toward me. I was covered in blood chunks of plaster and human. I smiled up at him, offering up the remains of the woman that I was still clutching. He laughed, loud, boisterously.

"Don't worry," he said. "There's plenty for us both here."

**Author's note: remember the note I put on last chapter? With swarms of locusts and divine vengeance and heavenly rewards and what not? Yeah, everything I said in it still holds true.**


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